Need Wood Chips? Park R-3 School District Can Help

By: Rick Spear, Director of Transportation and Auxiliary Services-Park School District R-3

As some in our community may have noticed, we have large piles of engineered wood fiber (wood chips) stacked around the play area at the Estes Park Elementary School’s playgrounds. I would like to take this opportunity to let everyone know what is going on.

Last August the district had new playgrounds installed on the upper field near the Elementary School. Our old playgrounds were worn out and too small to accommodate our students. They were also not safe by today’s playground industry standards.

The district applied for a grant from the Department of Local Affairs (DoLA) to enable us to afford a “poured in place” surface for these play areas. DoLA did not have the recycled tires available at the time to create the surface. In an effort to have the playgrounds ready for the start of school the district decided to utilize engineered wood fiber surfacing which meets ADA access and safety requirements.

DoLA recently notified us that the recycled tires were now available and awarded us a grant to cover 70% of the cost of a poured in place safety surface. Consequently, we now have many wood chips to dispose of.

We cannot sell them back, and throwing them in the dumpsters is costly. We would like to offer the wood chips to our community members. They can be used for landscaping or other purposes. In return for taking wood chips please consider making a donation for the maintenance and upkeep of the Kid’s Quest playground. Kids’ Quest is the castle-like wood play structure that was built by volunteers in the community several years ago.

Any donations collected will be used to pay for routine repairs and maintenance of this community project.
Anyone interested in obtaining wood chips can contact Rick Spear at 970-577-0211, extension 3410. We hope that our community can put these wood chips to good use.